Review of Chasing Amy (1997) by Harry W — 18 Dec 2013

Chasing Amy is undoubtably the most clever and insightful of all of Kevin Smith's films, because it explores a real human side to its characters and asks questions that we've all considered briefly before but never asked for ourselves.

Its story is pretty basic and its characters can be considered a little bit too complicated for their own good at times, but Chasing Amy consistently benefits from Kevin Smith's utter heart which he has clearly poured into the well intentioned and meaningful story about what it is to share a love with Alyssa Jones in the same manner that he himself shared a relationship with the actress Joey Lauren Adams. See, Chasing Amy is clearly a film that Kevin Smith is passionate about, because he doesn't need any more than $250,000 to put it together. Unlike many films today which are built on a high budget, Chasing Amy is built on Kevin Smith's talents as a filmmaker.

Kevin Smith not only directs the story greatly, but his screenplay is an incredibly powerfully insightful one as well as a hilarious one, and its surprising to know that the man who created Clerks had the same understanding for complex humanistic elements in drama that he had in comedy. Then again I shouldn't be surprised, but its safe to say that Chasing Amy is likely to be a nice surprise to anyone whose a fan of Kevin Smith, particularly considering he's the man behind the anything-but-intelligent comedy film Cop Out from 2010. Quentin Tarantino defined Chasing Amy as "a quantum leap forward" for Kevin Smith, and it really is considering he's gone from writing clever amateur comedies to this insightful and intelligent independent piece of cinema.

But what ensures that the script and direction is nailed in the film's execution is a very talented cast.

Joey Lauren Adams, an actress that I have liked and respected since watching Big Daddy as a child, gives undoubtedly her career defining performance in Chasing Amy as the complex character that is the subject of the story. The character is clearly written for her, and written to be a complex character whose understanding of sexuality and gender roles comes straight from Joey Lauren Adams' heart when she delivers the lines, because in Chasing Amy Joey Lauren Adams in fact is Alyssa Jones. She's not playing her, she's being her. There's a difference, and Joey Lauren Adams knows it and teaches it to us powerfully through her meaningful and hard hearted line delivery. She is one of the reasons Chasing Amy feels so honest, and her performance is an unforgettable one.

And Ben Affleck reminds us that he is in fact a good actor in this simple independent drama like the kind which kicked his career off in the first place. Ben Affleck makes Holden McNeil a character really easy to sympathise with as well as question, and frankly its likely that viewers will learn a lot about the human psyche merely from watching Ben Affleck's performance. His chemistry with Joey Lauren Adams and Jason Lee is excellent, and so the main source of strength comes from Ben Affleck's skill for establishing connections to other actors, and Chasing Amy is strong evidence of that.

Jason Lee himself is also great and hilarious in his supporting role and had a strong ability for sharing great moments with other actors, and Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith were great in their cameos as Jay and Silent Bob.

So more meaningful than you'd expect it to be or even than it needed to be, Chasing Amy is clearly Kevin Smith's cleverest movie which reminds us that he is in fact a very intelligent and ambitious filmmaker who has earned the praise of even two-time Academy Award Winner Quentin Tarantino for making Chasing Amy.